Superconducting memory flip-flops in an instant

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An exotic form of electronic memory made using superconductors could someday be used to make computers that work at unprecedented speeds, say researchers.
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The Loebner Prize from a judge's perspective

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This year, for the first time in its history, the Loebner Prize competition was held in England, at the University of Reading to be precise. It was organised by Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah. Independently of whether Turing might have been pleased (he was not well treated in this country, recall?), there was a satisfying sense of “coming home” of the Turing Test (henceforth TT ). Expectations were high, and they very highly advertised too. The meeting was perfectly organised. Having been invited to play the role of a judge, together with several other colleagues, including two members of the IEG , Mariarosaria Taddeo and Matteo Turilli ( here are their pictures and Rosaria's interview ) , I enjoyed the opportunity to see from close-up the machinery and the TT . It was intriguing and great fun. Because there were interviews with the BBC and other things going on, and because we were also supposed to take part in the parallel AISB Symposium on the TT , I had time to test only...
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"What is life?" is not a question that Pilate asked, but it is as difficult as "what is truth?", so he might. Since Schrödinger's classic , there have been endless attempts at providing a satisfactory answer. The Nishinomiya- Yukawa Memorial International Syposium seeks to provide a multidisciplinary framework to tackle the nature of life in its many forms. It is a very worthwhile project. Some papers will probably be too technical even for a scientifically-minded philosopher (check the program here , you may need to install Japanese fonts). I'm supposed to provide the philosophical contribution, and my talk will be on bioinformation. Schroedinger kepts apologising in his classic for not being a biologist. I shall apologise twice, for not being a physicist (or Schrödinger) either. I hope that my participation will also be a crash course in life-related issues.
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